Pilobolus

You've probably seen the pictures in one of those coffee table books celebrating the dancer's body: tangle of heads and limbs, bodies contorted into seemingly impossible configurations. That's Pilobolus.

They began in a dance class at Dartmouth College in 1971. Since then, they've grown into a major American dance company. They live and work in rural northwest Connecticut, and they perform their feats of balance and motion all over the world.

They take their name from a type of fungus that grows mostly on cow pies. The fungus grows 1/4 inch tall and bears a black cap of spores, which it can shoot as high up as six feet and as far as eight feet.